Ending the long wait, rains lashed large parts of the State prompting the weather office to announce the onset of southwest monsoon in Odisha. Late by more than a week, the showers brought the mercury level down and relief to a State tortured by an unrelenting heatwave.
The downpour, which started late on Saturday, continued till early hours of Sunday. In the process, it caused serious power outage, plunging the coastal parts into darkness for several hours.
Keonjhar received 10 cm rains, highest for the day, followed by Baripada and Chandbali with 8 cm each. Bhubaneswar received close to 5 cm rains. Most parts in northern and central Odisha also received showers.
The Met department was quick to declare the onset of monsoon saying it has covered all the districts except Jharsuguda, Sundargarh and some parts of Bargarh, Sambalpur, Deogarh, Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj. Chances are that the monsoon will move into remaining parts of the State in the next three days. Only a day back, the IMD was unclear about the arrival of monsoon and had stated that it could take a few more days since its current was weak and taking time to revive. However, it pinned its hopes on a cyclonic circulation over the Bay of Bengal. This apparently helped the monsoon advance into the State. The forecast that it would turn into a low pressure means more rains, which will be good news for the farmers.
Amidst all the predictions, not much rainfall was recorded over the State on Sunday morning. In fact, the Agro-meteorology department of OUAT has a different take on the monsoon. Only two days back, it had said that rains triggered by the cyclonic circulation would look like monsoon in most parts, but it would be pre-monsoon showers.
Though there would be fairly widespread rainfall from June 17 to 19, it would be low in intensity. As per the calculations, monsoon may remain weak in June and most of the rainfall will be caused either by a trough or a cyclonic circulation.